different between stern vs larboard

English

Alternative forms

• sterne (obsolete)

Pronunciation

• (General American) enPR: stûrn, IPA^(key): /st?n/
• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: stûn, IPA^(key): /st??n/
• Rhymes: -??(?)n

Etymology 1

From Middle English stern, sterne, sturne, from Old English styrne (“stern, grave, strict, austere, hard, severe, cruel”), from Proto-Germanic *sturnijaz (“angry, astonished, shocked”), from Proto-Indo-European *ster- (“rigid, stiff”). Cognate with Scots stern (“bold, courageous, fierce, resolute”), Old High German storn?n (“to be astonished”), Dutch stuurs (“glum, austere”), Swedish stursk (“insolent”).

Adjective

stern (comparative sterner, superlative sternest)

1. Having a hardness and severity of nature or manner.
   • stern as tutors, and as uncles hard
2. Grim and forbidding in appearance.
   • 1814, William Wordsworth, The Excursion

     these barren rocks, your stern inheritance

Translations

Etymology 2

Most likely from Old Norse stjórn (“control, steering”), related to stýra (“to steer”), from Proto-Germanic *stiurijan?, whence also English steer. Also possibly from Old Frisian stiarne (“rudder”), from the same Germanic root.

Noun

stern (plural sterns)

1. (nautical) The rear part or after end of a ship or vessel.
2. (figuratively) The post of management or direction.
3. The hinder part of anything.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Edmund Spenser to this entry?)

4. The tail of an animal; now used only of the tail of a dog.

Synonyms

• (of a ship): poop

Antonyms

• bow

Derived terms

• from stem to stern
• sternpost

Translations

See also

• keel
• aft

Etymology 3

From a variant of tern.

Noun

stern (plural sterns)

1. A bird, the black tern.

Translations

Anagrams

• 'rents, Ernst, Snert, nerts, rents, snert, terns

Dutch

Etymology

Possibly cognate with Latin sturnus (“starling”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /st?r/
• Rhymes: -?r

Noun

stern m (plural sterns or sternen, diminutive sterntje n)

1. tern

Middle English

Noun

stern

1. Alternative form of sterne

Mòcheno

Etymology

From Middle High German stërne, stërre, stërn, from Old High German sterno, from Proto-Germanic *stern?, from Proto-Indo-European *h?st?r (“star”). Cognate with German Stern, English star.

Noun

stern m

1. star

References

• Anthony R. Rowley, Liacht as de sproch: Grammatica della lingua mòchena Deutsch-Fersentalerisch, TEMI, 2003.

Piedmontese

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /st?r?/

Noun

stern m

1. breastbone

English

Etymology

From Middle English laddebord, referring to the side of the ship on which cargo was loaded. Changed to larboard in the 16th century by association with starboard.

Noun

larboard (usually uncountable, plural larboards)

1. (archaic, nautical) The left side of a ship, looking from the stern forward to the bow; port side.
   • 1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 2,^[1]

     […] harder beset

     And more endangered than when Argo passed

     Through Bosporus betwixt the justling rocks,

     Or when Ulysses on the larboard shunned

     Charybdis, and by th’ other whirlpool steered.

   • 1841, Edgar Allan Poe, “A Descent into the Maelström”^[2]

     The boat made a sharp half-turn to larboard, and then shot off in its new direction like a thunderbolt.

   • 1898, H. G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, Book One, Chapter 17,^[3]

     Suddenly the foremost Martian lowered his tube and discharged a canister of the black gas at the ironclad. It hit her larboard side and glanced off in an inky jet that rolled away to seaward, an unfolding torrent of Black Smoke, from which the ironclad drove clear.

Usage notes

In the Royal Navy it was not until 1844 that larboard was abandoned for port in reference to that side of the ship. The term port however had always been used when referring to the helm (ie. sailing direction), in order to avoid any confusion between starboard and larboard in such an important matter. (Reference: Ray Parkin, H. M. Bark Endeavour, Miegunyah Press, second edition 2003, ?ISBN, page 56.)

In chapter 12 of Life on the Mississippi (1883) Mark Twain writes larboard was used to refer to the left side of the ship (Mississippi River steamboat) in his days on the river -- circa 1857-1861.

Synonyms

• backboard
• port
• left

Antonyms

• starboard

Translations

Anagrams

• Labrador, labrador